The past and future of welfare state politics

Philipp Rehm (Ohio State University)

Abstract: In 1880, not a single country had a nationally compulsory social policy program. A few decades later, every single one of today’s rich democracies had adopted programs covering all or almost all of the main risks people face: old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment. These programs rapidly expanded in terms of range, reach, and resources. Today, all rich democracies cover all main risks for a vast majority of citizens, with binding public or mandatory private programs, though there are stark cross-national differences. The talk offers a theoretical framework centered around the distribution of risk within societies to account for this remarkable development, which also helps to shed some light on the future of welfare state politics.